Words (but not tones) facilitate object categorization: evidence from 6- and 12-month-olds

Recent studies reveal that naming has powerful conceptual consequences within the first year of life. Naming distinct objects with the same word highlights commonalities among the objects and promotes object categorization. In the present experiment, we pursued the origin of this link by examining the influence of words and tones on object categorization in infants at 6 and 12 months. At both ages, infants hearing a novel word for a set of distinct objects successfully formed object categories; those hearing a sequence of tones for the same objects did not. These results support the view that infants are sensitive to powerful and increasingly nuanced links between linguistic and conceptual units very early in the process of lexical acquisition.     

Labels as features (not names) for infant categorization: a neurocomputational approach

A substantial body of experimental evidence has demonstrated that labels have an impact on infant categorization processes. Yet little is known regarding the nature of the mechanisms by which this effect is achieved. We distinguish between two competing accounts: supervised name-based categorization and unsupervised feature-based categorization. We describe a neurocomputational model of infant visual categorization, based on self-organizing maps, that implements the unsupervised feature-based approach. The model successfully reproduces experiments demonstrating the impact of labeling on infant visual categorization reported in Plunkett, Hu, and Cohen (2008) . It mimics infant behavior in both the familiarization and testing phases of the procedure, using a training regime that involves only single presentations of each stimulus and using just 24 participant networks per experiment. The model predicts that the observed behavior in infants is due to a transient form of learning that might lead to the emergence of hierarchically organized categorical structure and that the impact of labels on categorization is influenced by the perceived similarity and the sequence in which the objects are presented. The results suggest that early in development, say before 12 months old, labels need not act as invitations to form categories nor highlight the commonalities between objects, but they may play a more mundane but nevertheless powerful role as additional features that are processed in the same fashion as other features that characterize objects and object categories.     

The emotional impact of faces (but not names): Face specific changes in skin conductance responses to familiar and unfamiliar people

Skin Conductance Responses (SCRs) to familiar and unfamiliar names and faces were recorded from independent groups of subjects, using two different presentation designs: the first employing fewer familiar than unfamiliar items (Tranel, Fowles, and Damasio, 1985) and the second employing equal numbers of familiar and unfamiliar items. In both designs, familiar faces were responded to significantly more strongly than unfamiliar faces, whereas for names there was no difference in responses to familiar and unfamiliar stimuli. Faces produced significantly larger overall SCRs than names in the unequal familiar/unfamiliar ratio design, but this effect was not observed in the equal ratio design. The results are discussed with particular reference to those previously published by Tranel et al. (1985) and in relation to work both on covert recognition in prosopagnosia and on one of the delusional misidentification syndromes known as the Capgras delusion. This study was carried out with generous support from the EJLB Foundation (Canada) and the Wellcome Trust.     

The emotional impact of faces (but not names): Face specific changes in skin conductance responses to familiar and unfamiliar people

Skin Conductance Responses (SCRs) to familiar and unfamiliar names and faces were recorded from independent groups of subjects, using two different presentation designs: the first employing fewer familiar than unfamiliar items (Tranel, Fowles, and Damasio, 1985) and the second employing equal numbers of familiar and unfamiliar items. In both designs, familiar faces were responded to significantly more strongly than unfamiliar faces, whereas for names there was no difference in responses to familiar and unfamiliar stimuli. Faces produced significantly larger overall SCRs than names in the unequal familiar/unfamiliar ratio design, but this effect was not observed in the equal ratio design. The results are discussed with particular reference to those previously published by Tranel et al. (1985) and in relation to work both on covert recognition in prosopagnosia and on one of the delusional misidentification syndromes known as the Capgras delusion. This study was carried out with generous support from the EJLB Foundation (Canada) and the Wellcome Trust.     

A Likely Explanation: IBE as a Guide to Better (but not more probable) Hypotheses

Abstract

Several friends of inference to best explanation have claimed in recent work that explanatory virtues, such as consilience, simplicity and increased precision, play an important heuristic role in assigning probabilities to available hypotheses and that it is this role that justifies continued efforts to investigate the scope, nature and epistemic value of the inference rule. In this paper I argue that understanding explanatory virtues as a guide to probability assignments creates a critical dilemma for advocates of IBE that has not previously been made sufficiently explicit and which has significant implications for the prospects of the rule. I conclude that the viability of IBE requires that explanatory virtues be related to a non-probabilistic conception of success.     

I only have eyes for you: Ovulation redirects attention (but not memory) to attractive men

A number of studies have found a disjunction between women’s attention to, and memory for, handsome men. Although women pay initial attention to handsome men, they do not remember those men later. The present study examines how ovulation might differentially affect these attentional and memory processes. We found that women near ovulation increased their visual attention to attractive men. However, this increased visual attention did not translate into better memory. Discussion focuses on possible explanations, in the context of an emerging body of findings on disjunctions between attention to, and memory for, other people.     

Defensive Reactions to Masculinity Threat: More Negative Affect Toward Effeminate (but not Masculine) Gay Men

We examined whether, due to men’s desire to reject stereotypically feminine traits in themselves, a masculinity threat would elicit negative affect toward effeminate, but not masculine gay men. Fifty-three male undergraduates from the United States received bogus feedback that they had either a “masculine” or “feminine” personality before rating affect toward two “types” of gay men: effeminate and masculine. Results were consistent with the notion that defensive reactions target groups stereotyped as having the specific traits perceivers wish to deny in themselves: masculinity threat selectively increased negative affect toward effeminate, but not masculine, gay men. Thus, gay men who exhibit feminine traits may be at particular risk from men whose masculinity is threatened.